Yesterday I was gloriously fire-hosed with youth marketing knowledge and insight, and have since been compiling my reams of notes into something that may be of interest to people. I was at the What Teens Want conference in NYC, it was buckets of fun, and I’m here to pass on my learnings. There were nine sessions to the conference, but on the whole, certain themes emerged that I’ve diced everything up into.

But first, you may ask (as I have been numerous times in the last few hours), "So, Chet, what is it that teens want?" I tell them it might take a day to explain, and that might not be enough. I also tell them that this conference might have rightly been titled, "How To Market To Teens," or "What Teens are Like." It was all of these things.

But alas, I must tell them then that the short answer is they want a lot of things, but primarily they want to create an identity, want to connect with others, want to create, want to change the world, want to be older than they are, want to have fun, and as a driving force, they want to do this now. And as my new hero, Angela Leaney from The N put it, don’t call them fickle. They are smart and savvy, and if what you’re doing isn’t good, they won’t like it. Word up to that.

Time to hit the details:

1. The basics about teens
2. Word of mouth
3. User-generated-content
4. Mobile lifestyle
5. Social networking
6. Engagement
7. Customization
8. Lessons from The N
9. Social activism through consumption
10. Trend creation

Newsletter readers: come to Ypulse.com to read the review.

1. The basics

Nowhere better to start than to take a quick look at the teen group in general, to see what they’re all about. Most of the juicier insights can be found sprinkled in with the other themes. Here are the basics from the conference:

From Alloy Media + Marketing:

• 33.8 million teens in the U.S. (up more than 200,000 from 2005)
• Teens spend $209 billion per year (although he didn’t define if this was direct spending or included influential spending. I’d assume direct plus influence spending)
• Diverse: 36% are non-white
• Influence parents buying decisions:
  - 67% beverages
  - 53% vacation
  - 50% computers
  - 49% cell phone
  - etc.
  

• Teens look up to their parents. Seventy-one percent see their parents as their chief role model, miles above the next contender, teachers (40%). On top of that, 59% say their parent is their best friend. They are the first generation to share music taste with their parents
  
• Dream jobs: Entrepreneur (13%), Musician (11%), Doctor (8%). Worth noting is that service jobs like being a firefighter or carpenter are very low on the desire pole
  
• Decreasing interest in being famous, or "being someone else." Points to the trend of authenticity
  
• Very interestingly: If inherited $20 k, would spend it on a college education (by a large margin)
  
• Want to contribute to society through their consumer choices
  
• Most important item is always a "cool car." Of all items, the cell phone is the last item they would give up if forced. When money is cutback, the items and activities they’d cut back, in order include: movies, going out, clothes, and shopping
  

Media consumption and the reduction of TV viewing was rightly a huge theme. Greg Tseng from Tagged.com noted that 87% of teens are online and 35% of teen media consumption is online.

When "passion points" were discussed, music came up time and time again as the most important. Going to a concert by their favorite band is the number one event choice. With movies, teens seem to gravitate towards either films that are wishful or films that are full of dread (from Clint Culpepper and Marc Weinstock of Screen Gems).

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2. Word-of-mouth

Teens want to connect with their friends, carve out an identity, and be creative. Brands are increasingly a means for them to do so. Instead of talking about the weather, why not talk about Adicolor sneakers? Sounds good. And how about mobile and online communities where teens can talk about these things really really fast - exponentially fast. Sure. It’s the new reality of word of mouth; the driving force of youth marketing.

Tru Pettigrew and Samantha Skey of Allow Media + Marketing started the day off hammering home the importance of friends and communities. Tru's main points had to do with friends being central to trend creation, showing how friend groups are the source of comfort, support, advice, and the top way they "find out about things." They don’t go out of their way to research trends, they discover them through friends, flipping through magazines, at the mall - they don’t actively research it. Celebrities influence, but don’t create trends.

Samantha Skey showed how the definition of a friend has evolved to be much looser and inclusive than in previous generations, often including those met online, but not in person. Basically, friends are people teens "know" in some form or another, and they are sensitive and savvy about the ways they interact with their different levels of friends, which she demonstrated with an "intimacy scale" and the form of communications that follow the different levels. For marketers, she recommended finding the social leaders within networks , seeding them, providing them the mechanism to pass the word, and allow for personalization.

Then there’s the rise of Internet sites as influencers. When Howie Kleinberg of ElectricArtists set out to break musician Teddy Geiger without a label, only an EP, and a small budget, he sent the record to 300-400 targeted sites. In the end, 200 or so ended up supporting Geiger in a measurable way. Geiger has since formed a huge presence on the Web, with 200,000 MySpace friends, and 4.6 million songs streamed.

Basically, the fact that teens are so connected, so social, and so identity-driven has set the foundation for the myriad of new marketing being used to target them. The next themes all rely on its existence as the driving phenomenon.

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3. User-generated-content

User-generated-content is easily the biggest buzz term going. When Angela Leaney started her presentation off with a humorous look at jargon words that are guaranteed to be covered in most meetings at The N, it was first (along with MySpace, iPods, and "making it viral"). However, as she sniped, "sometimes user-generated-content is just unmitigated crap." That is definitely not the case at The N.

She outlined some of the brilliant Web features they use, like their "Video Mixer," which lets fans of the network easily mashup clips from a range of shows with pre-made sound beds. Once created, they can easily share them with friends. Within three weeks, 100,000 videos had been created. Also cool is their video commenting tool, which lets users overlay comments on top of show footage and share with friends. I am now convinced that Angela Leaney and The N are visionary. I can’t wait to see what they do next.

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4. Mobile lifestyle

Perhaps the stat of the conference that generated the best response: 15% of Virgin Mobile users admitted to breaking up with a boyfriend/girlfriend via text message...Welcome to the mobile lifestyle. Obviously, mobile devices are shaking things up a lot more outside of the dating world. Pretty much everyone talked about using mobile elements in their campaigns.

Howard Handler noted that text messaging continues to be on fire, with 65% of Virgin Mobile users being "active text messagers," an increase of 33% over last year. More importantly, the phone is the teens most prized/required possession: they would give up all other items ahead of their phone. And "pimping the phone" is a big part of why they love them:

• 42% have downloaded ringtones and ringback tones
• 30% have downloaded graphics
  
• The number of users that downloaded a ringtone in the last month is 28%, way up from 17% in 2005
• Negative opinions about ads on cell phones are loosening: 58% don’t want them vs. 71% last year

There was a general agreement that convergence of mobile devices wasn’t something teens really wanted. However, Claymen made a cool observation that the “good enough” segment will probably grow a bit as more users look at their camera phone and say, “it’s good enough,” and don’t purchase a camera-only product.

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5. Social networking

Tagged.com CEO Greg Tseng was on the "Tech Heads" panel, and noted that Tagged has 3 million registered users, which is almost 10% of the U.S. teen population. As a niche player in the social networking world, his company is a pretty strong player, but the fact there are so many more speaks to the importance and influence of these sites.

As Howard Handler noted, 44% of teens have different friends offline than onllne. Fifty-eight percent also feel positively towards social networking sites. Twenty-eight percent say it’s a great place to express creativity. Virgin put up a MySpace profile, and now has 30,000 friends.

In the promotion of "When a Stranger Calls," Sony Screen Gems created MySpace profiles for the characters in the movies, and linked them to the movie Web site. It took off like crazy. The profile got 770,000 page views and was added to 90,000 friend lists before the theatrical release. It now has 151,000 friends and over 9000 comments. Incredible.

When the fit is right, getting on MySpace is a no-brainer. Angela Leaney talked about how they had the idea to create a profile for “Instant Star.” One week later, and at the cost of "$5 for overtime pizza for the copy writer," they had a page that would eventually gather 22,000 friends.

And where is social networking going? Well there wasn’t much talk about this, but Greg Clayman, VP Wireless Strategy and Operations at MTV discussed the difficulty of bringing social networking communities to the mobile world. The primary obstacle is a small screen that just makes it cumbersome to work with, which makes it mostly useful to connect with your the community that you run off your computer. Even that is limited.

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6. Engagement

Not a new story, but it still went like this: "Impressions are out, engagement is in."

Greg Tseng mentioned the "Celebrity Look-a-Like" contests they run through the Tagged community, and link to entertainment sponsors. For instance, if Cameron Diaz had a new film coming out, they would create engagement in the sponsorship by running a look alike contest among their community - something that has proven very popular.

As Samantha Skey puts it, "multitasking is out, engagement is in." Since teens are so engaged in different media at the same time, marketing must hit them on a deeper level. Some stats on what they’re doing while doing homework:

• TV is on: 49%
• Web: 41%
• MP3 playing: 40%
• Radio: 35%
• Phone: 18%
• SMS: 18%

Of all media, the Web is the most engaging because it’s informative and social.

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7. Customization

Customization is driven by a need to differentiate ones identity. As noted in the Alloy session, teens are "identity producers." They are the "Starbucks generation" and feel entitled to customization and choice as an expression of identity. Photojournalism aids in identity product expressed on MySpace, Sconex etc. Social networking sites show a more risk-taking version of a teens personality, with more experimentation. They try things on, and then bring it to the school if it works.

Howard Handler gave the example of "old school" vs. "open source" marketing, using the example of Nike’s evolution from a command and control “Just Do It” brand, to one that launches programs like Nike iD. The open source idea is something he said drove the core of their marketing program. In his terms, customization means giving teens easy options to do business with Virgin on their terms.

Adicolor was mentioned a few times, with good reason. Combining trends beyond customization like DIY and arts & crafts, Adidas completely nailed this program.

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8. Lessons from The N

There were, in fact, eight lessons. More importantly, I’ll say it again: Angela Leaney is my new hero. Her presentation was awe inspiring, and she offered a sharp voice to the day. Here are her excellent rules which she invited people to “rip off:”

1. Institutionalize experimentation
2. Don’t try too hard
3. Encourage participation
4. Allow your audience to inspire you
5. Better ingredients, tastier results
6. Make it easy to be an ambassador
7. Yield control
8. Being a true engagement marketer, she insisted that the audience send an email to one of her staff for the final rule.

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9. Social activism through consumption

Howard Handler spent some time on this, mentioning the Intelligence Group’s "Cassandra Report" as providing him the insight of “activism light.” It’s the idea that teens are extremely socially aware, but favour participation through their consumption choices, because they believe corporations are more effective agents of change than governments. So if you need a t-shirt, why not choose American Apparel over the Gap. He believes the "Hipster has been replaced by the Hopester," and his Virgin Re*Generation campaign is a good example of how they’ve addressed this. Through programs with YouthNoise and the Stand Up For Kids organization, Virgin lets teens contribute through their consumer choices by donating 5% of their profits from downloaded content. They also let users donate money via SMS texting, which Virgin will match.

The foundation point is that teens care about the world like crazy. The Alloy stat states that 66% of teens are worried about the state of the world and feel socially responsible. Moreover, teens want to represent themselves as well-rounded. Forty-nine percent say that marketing influences them if the company is socially responsible. Areas like animal friendly production and environmentally safe manufacturing are right up there. Teens are highly supportive of things like recycling, educating their friends and volunteering, but a lot more sceptical that it will make a difference.

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10. Trend creation

For me the best insights on trend creation and dispersion came in the last session featuring the panel of Teen Vogue "It Girls" and some "It Boys" they had recruited for the day. As if scripted, they confirmed all of the talk from the day with real life examples of their lives.

The guiding principle is that trends are dispersed through word of mouth through friends, from the bottom up, not the top down. Media is such an important factor now. Web sites like StarStyle.com let teens find and buy clothes, makeup, even set decorations from hit shows. When a teen mentioned the influence of the music from the "O.C.," it became clear how teens are taking traditional media, chopping it up, networking up, and dispersing the trends.

But top down items like advertising and celebrity endorsements definitely play a decent sized role, but but ultimately it is the teens themselves that make it their own and spread the word.

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Posted by chet